When you think of spring flowers on trees I would expect things come to mind like Dogwood, Redbud, or the ever so popular Bradford Pear. But pretty much every tree flowers in one way or another… it has to in order to perpetuate it’s species. It’s just that not all of them do it in such a showy fashion.

Take for example Maples. No one ever associates Maples with flowers. Here is a Norway Maple in my front yard. At a glance it appears that the tree is simply pushing out this year’s set of leaves. Closer inspection reveals that it’s actually the maple’s bouquet of flowers, it’s offering to would-be pollinators. I have no idea what those pollinators are, but I’m sure it’s some kind of insect.

And here we have a Norway Spruce. Apparently someone of Norwegian descent must have lived here decades ago and attempted to recreate their homeland. I assume these are the starts of flowers, but I could be wrong. Spruces and Firs often have red, purple or bluish colored flowers and I believe most conifers tend to rely solely on the wind for pollination as they produce exorbitant amounts of pollen.

How many times have I wrote about planting trees? Probably too many, yet I continue to plant and continue to write about it. The weekend turned out to be relatively nice, so on Sunday I planted a little over half of the MDC seedlings I ordered this year (125 trees). For this round of planting I mainly replaced other seedlings that for one reason or another have died. It was kind of interesting locating the flags where I placed a tiny tree two years ago. Near one flag I even found the original pine stem buried under some grass in an advanced state of decay.

In addition to replacing dead trees, I also more densely populated existing groupings. The closer the trees are, the sooner their branches will begin to touch, and the faster they will grow height, rather than width. Pines (the vast majority of what I plant) require loads of sunlight, so when their needles started getting shaded by another tree, they start racing upwards to avoid being shaded to death.

I like planting the trees and imagining what they will look like in 5, 10, 20 years down the road. I also like the idea of someday stepping out my back door and smelling the pine scent in the air. I get my love of trees from my mom, however I get my specific love of Pine trees from my dad.

It’s March and for me that means just one thing… time to plant trees! Most years I stick mainly to the cheapo bundles of seedlings available from the Missouri Conservation Dpt…stuff like White, Loblolly, and the pine from which that this website gets its name…the Shortleaf. However, this year I wanted a few species that are a little more obscure, at least in this part of the country.

So here are my new specimens and why I chose them:

• Jeffrey Pine: Bark smells like vanilla. Yum.
• Grand Fir: Looks cool.
• Dawn Redwood: One of the oldest known tree species, can be found in fossils.
• Concolor Fir: Found some of these growing in the Mark Twain Natl Forest…Looks cool.
• Douglas-Fir: Gets really tall, looks cool.
• Deodar Cedar: Unique and looks cool.

So, basically I just picked out ones that I think look cool. I’m sure to most people these trees all look exactly the same, but thanks to my geek skillz I was able to easily identify each one once I got them out of the boxes. I’m sure it seems like a waste of time and money to a lot of people, but I enjoy the process of planting them and watching them grow over the years. And eventually I’ll enjoy the way they change the look and feel of the property!

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I like me some hot peppers. And since I have managed to get on the mailing list of every gardening supply company on earth, I have catalogs full of every kind of seed imaginable. Here are a few pictured along with some useful info about each type. If you want some, just come by and get ‘em!

1. Red Thai and Orange Thai – Although technically two different types, I will group them since they are both ‘thai’ and both extremely hot. They are small, especially the orange ones, sometimes less than 1″ long but that’s really all it takes. These are good for those who want to try something over the top hot, but are intimidated by larger peppers.
2. Scotch Bonnet – This funny looking pepper is only funny until you eat it. A type of Habanero, there are only 2 known hotter species than this… the related Red Savina, and the Naga Jalokia (aka Ghost Pepper). I grow these only for novelty…they are way too hot for most normal applications, but it’s fun to take them to work and watch the other guys prove their manhood by trying to eat them.
3. Fish Peppers – I ordered these seeds just because they looked cool. All these came from the same plant. Some are striped, some are albino. Even the plant was weird looking. The catalog rated these as “very hot” but I find them to be quite mild compared to the previous two, which were both rated “extreme”.
4. Poblano – This is one of my favorite types to cook with because they have nice flavor and sometimes dye everything green. These are the largest peppers I grew this year, generally 5-6″, but if you want spice…these have barely more kick than a bell pepper.
5. Volcano – I don’t know anything about these. The seeds came free with my order and I haven’t tried one yet. So I don’t know what it tastes like or how hot they are. I assume it to be a middle of the road variety.

I often find myself buying various kinds of jams etc to spread on my bread for snacks and whatnot. The other day I went out to check on my raspberry plants and suddenly found myself with a surplus of berries. So I thought maybe I should make jam or something with them. In case anyone wants to try this at home, here is how it works…

1. Plant some raspberries.
2. Wait until you have so many berries you don’t know what to do with them.
3. Call mom to ask how canning works and hope she offers to basically do it for you.

Now that all that is settled, here are the steps of actually making the jam.

First, you need to rinse off the berries. I didn’t use any pesticides or anything like that, so it’s mainly leaves, dirts, and bugs that need to come off. For the record, rinsing these guys is kind of difficult and I’m not sure how effective my method was.

Put the berries in a pot and heat and smash them until you create a boiling pot of raspberry juice.

Add the same amount of sugar as you have raspberries. Continue boiling for about 5 minutes until it forms a gel like substance.

This is what it should look like when it’s done. You can either eat it now or freeze it. But if you want to store the jam in your cabinet for decades, then continue on to the next step.

Pour the jam into mason jars of whatever size you want. Make sure the lips are nice and clean, screw on a new canning lid, and drop the jars into boiling water for several minutes using this weird scissor-lift tool.

While the jars are boiling, lick the spatula thing.

Take the jars out of the boiling water and place them on the counter. Eventually the tops will make a ‘pop’ sound and you know it’s sealed. If they don’t seal then you’re pretty much screwed.

Now you have delicious raspberry jam that will last you throughout the winter months!

There are 3 species of Redwood trees and just about everyone is familiar with two of them. The Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) is the overall largest tree species on earth, and the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is world’s tallest tree species.

The third redwood, which you’ve probably never heard of is the lesser known Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), one of the oldest known tree species. This species is interesting because it had been identified only in fossils and was thought to be extinct until a grove of them was discovered in China in the middle part of the 20th century. So this is one of only a handful of tree species I know of which were around when dinosaurs roamed the planet.

The scientific name suggests to me that scientists don’t think this redwood is quite as cool as it’s record setting cousins. That, or they think it’s just too weird… which may be somewhat true. In many ways I actually think the Dawn Redwood is more similar to a Bald Cypress (also a distant relative). I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Dawn Redwood but they are the only redwood that will grow in Missouri so I should probably plant a few.